First Great Awakening:
• 1730s-1740s
• Credited founder: Jonathan Edwards (remember Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God?)
Based on Puritan/Congregationalist ideals
o Northampton, Massachusetts
o Preached personal salvation
o Discussed repentance for sins (why? Remember “declension”?)
• Other major supporter: George Whitefield (revivalist, travels through the colonies)
o More emotional, revival-like sermons and preaching
o Influences the south (slaveholders participate; try to prevent slaves from attending)
• Influence of the “backcountry” – non-wealthy colonists living further west, take new revivalism
to heart and form new sects (remember the significance of this group on Early American
History)
Second Great Awakening:
• Early 1800s; usually 1810s to as late as the 1840s
• Most known leader: Charles Grandison Finney (has appeared in related DBQ essays)
• Directly influenced by increasing political participation of common citizens
• Plays a direct role in the antebellum reform movements, especially abolitionism (but also
including temperance, prison reform, and women’s rights – remember the Mock Exam FRQ?)
• Popular in the backcountry; especially the southern Appalachian regions
• Again, slaveholders tried to prevent slaves from attending; eventually had to come up with
Christian reasons for slavery
• Role of the Second Great Awakening on the frontier? As people move away from traditional
homelands, they must search for a sense of community
• This is really where newer sects gain increased membership: Methodists, Baptists
• Also, very different sects emerge: Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists
As seems to happen so often in politics, the Federalists opposed the Louisiana Purchase not on principled grounds but because they thought it would hurt them politically. They claimed to oppose the Purchase because it was unconstitutional.
